In the foothills west of town, Center’s home sat dark and empty in Buckhorn Canyon. She was forced to flee Sept. 12 as violent floodwaters rushed down the canyon, splintering homes and crumbling roads as they washed over them.

But Center was at peace Friday night. She is no stranger to finding the calm in natural disasters.

“Everything is exactly as it should be. Everything isn’t always as it appears,” she said smiling. “I’m not hopeless.”

Center built her house in Buckhorn Canyon in 1990. Since then, three wildfires have threatened her home. This month’s evacuation for the floods was her third in three years. For Center, each experience has carried with it a blessing and brought her closer to the 40 acres she has spent 23 years nurturing.

The Bobcat, Crystal and High Park wildfires burned thousands of acres in Larimer County and destroyed nearly 300 buildings. Center’s home was spared in each incident.

The first time a fire crept toward Center’s home was in 2000, when the Bobcat blaze burned half a mile away.

Center, her son and grandchildren pushed a sleeping sofa to her sliding glass doors and watched the fire at night. They each packed a small suitcase and waited, watching the fire from her back deck. Then, one afternoon, the winds changed direction and began blowing the fire back onto itself.

Snow started falling later that evening.

“The message for me was to let go of my attachment to my house,” Center said. “Letting go of your attachment to things doesn’t mean you let go of your things. It means you can let go of that fear of loss.”

When the Crystal fire sparked in the summer of 2011, Center was in Minnesota visiting her mother. Her daughter called her in the middle of the night and told her that her neighborhood had been evacuated.

“I actually felt very grateful,” she said.

Center’s car was parked at the airport, and her suitcase was full — which was more than what some of her neighbors had when they were evacuated in the middle of the night.

During the High Park fire, which destroyed 259 homes in the summer of 2012, Center was displaced for 17 days. Each evening, she and the friend she was staying with gazed at the clouds and the vibrant colors the fire threw on them.

“We’d look up and we just had hope,” she said.

Center still cries when she describes the group of firefighters she met at a gas station. She walked up to thank them for their work, but she walked away with an “unbelievable gift.”

The crew had saved Center’s home that morning.

But no matter the number of times Center has been forced to flee her home, the task remains overwhelming. She had 15 minutes to gather her belongings before the floodwaters began washing over the roads.

“I was standing there, and it was hard for me to have the realization,” Center said. “I opened up my refrigerator and thought, ‘What am I going to do with all this food?’ So I just closed the door.”

All she could do was gather a handful of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste.

“The best things in life aren’t things,” she said. “You get to that point after you leave so many times.”

The landscape around her home changed before she left.

“It was coming like a Class 5 whitewater rapid,” Center said. “I walked onto the land, and it felt squishy. Almost like right before an avalanche falls.”

Minutes after she drove down Buckhorn Road, sections of it started to wash out. Several of Center’s neighbors stayed and are working on building a footbridge into the neighborhood.

Center has been safe with family and friends since she was evacuated. Their open arms and kindness have been a constant force through each of her experiences, she said.

Still, Center misses the stars and the 70 to 80 hummingbirds that circle around her home. She was told it could be spring before she is able to move back.

But going home is nothing to worry about, she said.

“Every time I go home,” she said, “I see what’s up there, roll up my sleeves and do what I need to do.”

Jordan Steffen was the legal affairs reporter for The Denver Post. She left the organization in June 2016 after joining in January 2011. Her past coverage areas included breaking news, child welfare, the western suburbs and crime. She was raised in the Colorado mountains and graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder.

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